Kids get new spin on basketball

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. David Dobrydney
  • 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  What happens when a basketball is crossed with four wheels?

Students at Lakenheath Elementary School saw the answer Oct. 25 when the Bury Bombers, a wheelchair basketball team based in Bury St. Edmunds, paid a visit.

Sponsored by the Parent Teacher Student Organization, the school has hosted the Bombers for the past five years.

Mark Love, LES instructional support specialist, first learned of the team in a newspaper article he clipped and saved. The visits were originally coordinated under the "We Care for and Respect Everyone" program (We C.A.R.E.) where LES students would go out into the local community and visit hospices or daycare centers.

The first visit proved so popular the team has returned annually ever since, with Love continuing to coordinate them.

"[The team tries] to come during their half-term because they have students as well as people with regular jobs," Love said, adding the children really look forward to the visits as each year the third grade students are allowed to try out the wheelchair basketball for themselves.

The visit began with a school assembly where the Bombers played an exhibition game. Afterward, the younger students were so excited they couldn't decide what was the best part was, the players, the mascot or the speed of the chairs.

After the assembly, the team had hands-on sessions with the third grade students, who are the youngest students who are still big enough to sit comfortably in the chairs.

After being partnered up, the students were taught how to get into and out of the chair safely, how to dribble the ball, passing the ball and how to shoot.

Some of the students had played regular basketball before, but most had not seen wheelchair basketball.

Students Andrea Pampuan and Kyrah Catlin agreed the most challenging skill was picking up a loose ball using the motion of the wheels to scoop it into their hand.

"Regular basketball is easier because you're standing up," said Brennen Buchanan, another third grade student who enjoyed his first time actually playing with the Bombers after seeing their visits in previous years. "This is really harder sitting in the chairs," he said.

Student Clayton Riley, however, got right to the heart of the matter.

"It's pretty nice," Riley said of trying out the wheelchairs and playing with the team.

"Because people who can't walk, they think they can't do anything. But today they come here and show that they can," he said.

Feelings like that are what Jill Anderson, head coach for the Bombers, hopes all the children take away from the team's visits.

"They realize that there is more that to life for disabled people," Anderson said. "So if they actually meet a disabled person that doesn't stop them from saying 'let's go and play together.'"